“In the Mouth of Madness”
Movie #9 for the 2019 31 days of horror challenge.
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Best selling author, Sutter Cane, has gone missing and his publisher has hired a insurance investigator, John Trent, to find him and retrieve his latest manuscript. What Trent discovers is that belief can affect reality.
I just love this movie. It’s a very John Carpenter style psychological trip through what we think reality is, what we think fantasty is, and how very thin the line is between the two. The visiuals were handled fantastically, with surreal painted backdrops and inventive practical effects that hold up even 25 years later. Sam Neil give a spectacular preformance as our protagonist spiraling into insanity.
This film has so many wonderful H.P. Lovecraft references and homages, that although Sutter Cane is often compared to Stephen King, one wonders if Carpenter considers King a modern day Lovecraft (as both authors have a central religious/spiritual themes tying the bulk of their stories together, Lovecraft has the Elder Gods and King has the Dark Tower). Carpenter apparently was interested enough in the concept of how belief and fiction effects reality that he revisited the premise for his Masters of Horror entry “Cigarette Burns” which has a heavy christian slant.
Do I recommend this film? Oh hell yes.
